--- title: "How Useless is the Spanish Military?" description: "Spain is NATO's biggest underperformer relative to its economic power. Despite having Europe's fifth-largest economy and a strategically vital location guarding the Mediterranean, Madrid consistently underfunds its military and recently refused alliance-wide spending increases." url: https://fronts.co/videos/how-useless-is-the-spanish-military.md canonical: https://fronts.co/videos/how-useless-is-the-spanish-military/ datePublished: 2026-10-22T19:00:46.000Z dateModified: 2026-10-22T19:00:46.000Z author: - name: Fronts Staff url: https://fronts.co/authors/fronts-team/ publisher: Fronts type: NewsArticle language: en access: members isAccessibleForFree: false tokens: 9318 --- A team is only as strong as its weakest link, and in the transatlantic NATO alliance, there are a few nations that, if we're being totally honest, are really pulling their weight. Iceland, for example, doesn't even have a standing military, while Slovenia is now the single, low aspender by percent of GDP across the alliance. Belgium hosts NATO's headquarters, but is, in practice, a bit of a freeloader, contributing only minimal military capability of its own, and very few of the command or administrative capabilities that you'd expect from the headquarters nation. But across the entire alliance, there might be no nation less impressive as a NATO member than Spain. Unlike those other countries, Spain has the population, and the economy, to be a military powerhouse. It has the geostrategically significant location, as NATO's stoic watchmen over the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea. But when, in 2025, NATO nations chose to boost defence spending under US pressure, and take a much-needed step to raise defence budgets to 5% of their respective GDP, Spain was the only country in the alliance to refuse. Instead of stepping up and leveraging the power of the fifth-largest European economy on this side of the Ukraine war, Spain decided to carve out an exemption. And that dodgy maneuver, one that got US President Donald Trump to try and throw Spain out of the alliance, is only the start. Of all of Europe's major militaries, none have been so terribly, consistently underwhelming as the Spanish to the point that it's worth asking, where the Spain is a drag on the entire NATO alliance. Now before we get into the details on the shoddy state of the Spanish military, it's important that we take the time to emphasise that, whoever's fault this might be, it certainly isn't the fault of Spanish troops. Like the military personnel of any other nation, the people who comprise the Spanish armed forces, quite obviously, have the interests of their country at heart. They may be under-resourced, underpaid, ignored, kept on the sidelines, and suffering from understandably low morale as a result, but the problems with the Spanish military originate with the people in charge of those troops, not with the troops themselves. And we should also make it clear that even though we're not going to go out of our way today to be nice about the capabilities of the Spanish military, we're not about to go full Donald and argue that the other alliance members should, quoting Trump himself, throw them out of NATO. Spain is, after all, a full and complete country with distinct and complex national interests, and there are plenty of legitimate reasons that a country might choose not to focus as much attention on one area, in this case, its military, in order to focus on others. More is Spain technically obligated to make decisions in NATO's collective interest, whether by building its military more broadly, or going along with the rest of the alliance to raise its defence spending to 5%. This is a situation that deserves to be handled with a bit of nuance, because Spain truly is not engaged in some outright betrayal of its treaty partners. Instead, Spain's position within the 32-member NATO alliance is that a stick in the mud. The geopolitical equivalents of that one friend who refuses to even dip their toes in the pool when you've invited them and your 30 other friends over for a clearly advertised pool party. So, there's really no better place to start explaining Spain's longer-term military struggles than with that refusal to raise defence spending alongside the rest of the alliance. For other NATO members, that decision was a response to two key threats that impact the vast majority of the NATO alliance. The influence of Donald Trump on American foreign policy and on America's posture toward its transatlantic allies and the threat of an expansionist Russia that appears interested in a future continental war. But when we try to explain Spain's decision to refuse the 5% commitment, the country's disinterest in fighting Russia is fairly easy to explain. Spain is among the European NATO members positioned furthest from the Russian mainland, furthest from Russia's areas of naval operation, and furthest from Russia's largest sphere of influence across the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Spain is on the far side of the European continent, where there are no state- level threats coming from Northern Africa, none from within the Mediterranean Sea, and certainly no threat of direct military force from across the Atlantic, Greenland situation on with standing. Spain does not feel the urgency of Russian aggression in the same way that Poland, Finland, or Germany, even France and the UK do. So, the Spanish leaders have emphasised it doesn't make much sense for the country to take money out of its robust social services, its infrastructure, or its ongoing efforts to address a range of domestic issues in order to fight a faraway enemy where the threat is still somewhat abstract. The other side of the equation is of course the Donald Trump situation, where most NATO members chose to respond to Trump's demands, blaming the rest of the alliance for freeloading and taking advantage of the US by doing whatever they could to placate America 's commander-in-chief, Spain didn't. And placating America is a tried-and-true weapon in the alliance's arsenal these days. I mean, just ask Secretary-General Mark Rutter, for whom our warfront steam pledges, to never stop mentioning the time that he called Trump "Daddy." "Daddy has to sometimes do strong language, do against the strong language." You're welcome, Mr. Rutter. Spain, however, isn't led by Mark Rutter, or ahead of state he thinks like he does. Spain is led by one Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, and in Sanchez's world, Trump 's 5% demand was an opportunity to be on what he seems to believe will be the right side of history. To explain why Sanchez has gone about this in the way that he has, we've got to understand a little bit about Spanish domestic politics. First, Sanchez is a proud leftist and a member of Spain's largest party of social democrats, as well as the head of a worldwide association called Socialist International. Politically speaking, Trump and Sanchez might be the most polar opposite leaders in NATO right now. And Sanchez is not shy about opposing Trump publicly, especially when it comes to Trump's focus on military affairs. Spain has pointedly refused to play any part in Trump's war against Iran, even refusing the US access to key bases. And Sanchez is a harsh critic of Israel's actions in Gaza and elsewhere, openly calling the nation a, quote, "genocidal state." Sociologically and practically, Sanchez refuses Trump's demands to redistribute Spain's money for what Trump thinks is important, partially because that allows Sanchez to repudiate Trump's entire approach to the rest of the world. But the other thing that we need to understand on the domestic side is that Sanchez is actually quite weak in his own country. His government is facing serious pressure from rising far-right and anti- establishment parties with recent elections at the regional level, suggesting that Sanchez might be in serious trouble when Spain's next national vote takes place in May of 2027. His ruling party faces myriad scandals, including some that impact his own in a circle, and even his wife. The Spanish Parliament is perpetually gridlocked. Some of Sanchez's most important social reforms are stalling. His government coalition is held together with duct tape and rubber bands. And his decision to pardon Catalan's separatists has resulted in enduring resentment toward him. But we even mentioned the recent surge of tens of thousands of migrants into the Spanish autonomous city of Seyuta, a crisis for which Sanchez has taken much of the blame. Meanwhile, Sanchez is entirely aware that a defense budget increase would be among the least popular moves that he could make, with one 20-25 poll counting 58% of Spaniards opposed to spending more on defense, and only 14% in support of really significant investments in the military. So, Spain happens to be led by a guy, since 2018, who's chronically embattled on domestic affairs in his own parliament. But he's also been given a pretty significant gift by Donald Trump in the opportunity to gain easy, reliable political points and defend the interests and preferences of his own political base. He gets to score those points by not taking actions that would be unpopular at home anyway, like slashing social programs, reducing benefits, and engaging in a military build-up on the premise that Spain would use its armed forces to fight Russia, despite Moscow being some 3,500 kilometers and an entire continent away from Madrid. So, for Sanchez, and his political allies, the choice is clear. Fight for an exemption that most Spaniards will ultimately be pleased with while picking a geopolitical battle that Sanchez wins, just by being the guy who's willing to step into the ring and fight. Spain's place in the alliance is safe. After all, the European countries wouldn't ever vote to expel Spain, since that would open the door for Trump to try and reshape the alliance in much larger ways without Europe's support. And without Europe's support, the US has no recourse within the alliance itself. Now, of course, this episode isn't just about Spain's current leadership being unwilling to support its native allies on equal terms. The Spanish military has become so ineffectual from a process that began many years ago and is still playing out today. But before we explain that process, we'd like to pause this episode to tell you all about our premium subscriber site. France.co is our ally for all the stories that we don't have space to do justice here on the main channel, a place where we can dig deeper and go in earlier than we ever do on YouTube. Every week, we upload two exclusive videos, several expert written articles, and a podcast or two, all covering the conflicts and geopolitical stories that matter most to you. We host constant coverage in the Middle East, Ukraine, Sudan, the Sahel, the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere. Not to mention all the other conflicts that the rest of the world tends to ignore. Premium subscribers get full access to our back catalogue here on Warfronts, along with new uploads that you can watch totally add and sponsor free. A subscription to France costs just $5 a month or $50 a year. Again, that's France.co, check it out, and now let's get back to Spain. To find the origin of the endemic problems with the Spanish military, we've got to go back to Spain's transition to democracy, culminating with its first peaceful transfer of executive power in the modern era in 1982. If that sounds rather late for a major European democracy to be peacefully transitioning power, well, that would be because outside of Spain, it's easy to forget the part of Spanish history where the country was ruled by Francisco Franco with an iron fist. From 1939 to his death in 1975, Franco ran a totalitarian fascist regime, one that didn't ultimately join the Axis powers in World War II, and so doesn't really leave as much of an impression as Germany or Italy in the public consciousness today, but it was still a totalitarian dictatorship, one where Franco relied on the military as part of the foundation of his rule. After Franco's death, the Spanish military's reputation was stained by his legacy, and that reputation only got worse during the years between Franco and that aforementioned transition of power. Between an attempted coup by elements of the Spanish Armed Forces and the Civil Guard was in 1981, a wave of neo-fascist terror groups with deep links to state intelligence and national police, and the ongoing destruction of the Basque separatist insurgency, the Spanish people had really had enough of their military by the time the transition was over. Many of Spain's generals had embarrassed themselves and their country with their conduct in the post-Franco years, and the majority of the country was quite skeptical of the military's intentions. As author Raphael Martinez put it in a book on the subject in 2024, quote, "In the 1980s, the Army was one of the most reviled institutions. The military was considered inept, and all Francoist," end quote. Worse yet, Spain had spent decades geobilitically isolated and kept out of the high-quality arms market, meaning that by the early 80s, most of Spain's military equipment was badly outdated or of poor, domestically-made quality. The military leadership had spent many years fat and happy, but that was because under Franco and in the interim years, there was nobody to fight and nobody to push around, but the Spanish people. After Spain turned the page and settled into democratic rule, the joint NATO, and in principle, NATO membership gave Madrid a clear list of improvements to make, but the money didn't follow, or at least not enough money for Spain to really revitalize its armed forces. Instead, Spain was forced to try and make wholesale changes across a variety of areas of concern all at once with very limited resources to do so. The country had to reform a military from a fascist regime tentpole into a NATO -style fighting force, while also modernizing its equipment and operating principles while also moving over to NATO standards and gathering interoperable hardware. And they had to do this, while also learning how to listen and act on the instructions of a fully civilian democratic government. But to give an idea of just how little money was flowing into the Spanish military's coffers, recall that before the recent reforms, NATO asked that its members spend 2% on defense. Spain, however, only crossed the 1% threshold in 2021 and spent as low as 0.8% on defense as recently as 2016. The 90s were a better time for the Spanish armed forces, with spending over 2% around the end of the Cold War. But the figure dipped below 2% in 1995, and the 2000s were consistent mostly in how dismal they were, with 1.2% spending being the norm year over year. Our story is told "again" when we look at Spain's arsenal. Within the NATO alliance, the countries with the closest GDP to Spain are Canada and Turkey. And when we compare Spain against those two counterparts, the differences are stunning. We'll stick with conventional military equipment, since all three nations have had decades to build up their arsenals, as opposed to the new age challenges of, say, drones or electronic warfare capability. Spain relies on a total of around 270 main battle tanks in its arsenal, with the most modern having been introduced to global service in 2002. Turkey, meanwhile, fields around 750 modern main battle tanks, 1,600 older models, and it's planning to upgrade with 1,000 copies of a highly advanced South Korean- based tank that it's building on its own soil. Canada doesn't have nearly as many as Turkey or Spain, but it's also on a totally different continent, with no land enemies to fight in the next few decades, barring a Trump annexation of Alberta, or Quebec, of course. On artillery, Spain possesses just under 100 self-propelled houses, and will eventually receive a dozen multiple rocket launchers, whereas Turkey has around 1,100 self -propelled artillery pieces and around 100 modern multiple rocket launchers. Even Canada's waiting on an order of high mass systems that are over twice as large as Spain's eventual rocket launcher fleet. On the water, meanwhile, Spain's got enough warships, that its forces mean something, but there are many, many caveats that come along with that. Spain is one of a small handful of nations to sail an aircraft carrier, the relatively small Juan Carlos I, which could fly 25-harrier aircraft at maximum load. Spain sells a total of 11 frigates, 60 miners, and two dozen patrol craft, along with two attack submarines. But most of its warships, including all but one of its 11 frigates, were built before 2010, with only five new ships on the way to replace them. Its two submarines, meanwhile, will be replaced with a fleet of just four amid Spain's military upgrades. Canada, meanwhile, sails four hunter-killer submarines, and expects to raise their number to 12. While Canada's 12 frigates are all relatively elderly, it's replacing them with 15 destroyers, plus a new fleet of 16-20 ice-hardened corvettes to join them. As for Turkey, the nation sails 14 operational submarines, with another four on the way, plus 17 frigates, with seven more on the way, and its recently commissioned its first drone carrier using the same base model as Spain's aircraft carrier. Turkey is currently building its own aircraft carrier, slated to be over double the size of Spain's, and it's working on its own fleet of eight homemade guided missile destroyers, plus a totally new class of submarines under development. And in the air, even though Spain keeps up with its contemporaries a bit better on paper, that parity disappears when you dig into the details. Spain flies more than 130 combat aircraft, a combination of American-made F-A- 18 hornets, and the Delta Wing Eurofighter. That's comparable, if not a bit superior, to Turkey's current combat air fleet, which includes well over 200 F-16s and 30 heavily upgraded Cold War-era F-4s. Canada, meanwhile, flies the American Hornet, but it's the only aircraft in Canadian combat service with just 85 operational. But again, Canada and Turkey are each working to improve their respective fleets quickly, while Spain is at best lagging behind. Canada is currently waiting on an order of 88 F-35s with the first group of four set to arrive before the year's end. There's an ongoing debate in Canada over whether or not to replace some of the F-35s with Swedish grip and fighters, but these two would be a substantial upgrade over the F-A-18, albeit in different ways than the F-35. Turkey, meanwhile, is waiting on its first 20 copies of its indigenously designed fifth-generation stealth fighter, the Khan, with plans to acquire a total of 300 of the aircraft by the time production wraps up. Turkey's also waiting on 44 Eurofighters, including 20 of the latest version, Tranche V, along with 40 of the newest Model F-16s from the United States, and a potential invitation to the F-35 program. Spain, meanwhile, stung the rest of the world in 2025 when it announced that it would not acquire the F-35 at all, abandoning its plan to replace the F-A-18. Instead, Spain put all its chips on the F-Kass, a sixth-generation fighter program it was a part of alongside powerhouse partners, France and Germany. But then, this year, the F-Kass program collapsed, with no word yet on what Spain's going to do. Nor are Spain's current combat aircraft particularly modern or particularly capable. Its hornets finished their latest upgrades all the way back in 2013, and its newest Eurofighters, just 20 of them, are from a couple of iterations ago. Finally, Spain's non-combat fleet also falls badly behind. It's slated to fly just three jet-powered air-to-air refuelers, along with 20 much smaller, lower capacity prop-driven refuelers, and its largest air-lifter, the C-295, an aircraft with less than half the payload, and significantly inferior range, compared to the C-130J super Hercules. Put that against Canada, with its 17 C-130Js, its five copies of America's C-17 strategic air-lifter, and an anticipated 12 jet-powered air-to-air refuelers, and it is no contest. The same goes for Turkey, but we trust you get the point. For the personnel of the Spanish military, the result is, unfortunately, quite predictable. The morale of the armed forces is chronically low, driven by a combination of low wages, persistent understaffing, and are difficulty getting new recruits to sign up. Spanish troops are, or in the hole, quite good at what they do. Their reputation among NATO members is quite strong, and they certainly aren't lacking for discipline or professionalism, but most of their work over the last few decades has been on humanitarian missions, and the military is well aware that the Spanish people like it that way. When asked in 2025, Spaniards told the Euro-barometer that only about 20% of the country considered defence to be a priority, a score so low that only one other European nation, Malta, could match it. Quoting an article on the subjects published by Le Monde, "If Spaniards have a positive opinion of the Army today, it's because it's seen primarily as a force for putting out fires, building field hospitals, as during the COVID-19 pandemic, and conducting international peacekeeping operations." In Parliament, members of Pedro Sanchez' own party have recently called Spain to consider leaving NATO outright, especially after Spain's recent dust-ups with Donald Trump. And perhaps most damaging of all, according to a Gallup poll taken in 2023, just 29% of Paul Spaniards said they would be willing to personally fight for their country. So despite the best efforts of the troops who make up the Spanish military, Madrid's armed forces are in woefully poor shape for a country of Spain's size, development and economic power. Judging by the state of its most directly comparable peers in the NATO alliance, or by countries like South Korea, Poland, Sweden or Israel, that have significantly less wealth at their disposal, Spain should be a lot stronger than it is. Given its stature as a NATO member, in fact, it should have a well-developed indigenous arms industry and a large and well-compensated military. The fact that it doesn't, of course, is down to Spanish realities that are on the whole understandable, along history of military-enforced fascist rule, and geop olitically speaking a lack of natural predators as well as domestic priorities that Spaniards believe should take precedence. But that isn't to say that Spain is some geopolitical oasis where it could simply swear off a military like Iceland or Ireland and enjoy the spoils of its relative prosperity. In fact, Spain's location and the realities of the immediate vicinity suggest that this is a country that could have a serious impact if it were to throw its weight around. We should specify here that we're speaking purely from a Spanish vantage point, thinking about ways to act in Spain's cold, hard national interest. But from that perspective, just look at what happened this summer in the enclave of sweeter. Spain is NATO's gateway to the African continent, where along Africa's Mediterranean coast and through to the Sahel, Europe runs into countless challenges that it doesn't really have the means to stop. Take the endless love of migrants, taking their chances in desperate attempts to cross the sea. Take the overlapping transnational insurgencies of the Sahel, especially the nations of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Take the generations-long conflict in western Sahara, the modern day split in Libya, the convergence of bitter conflicts that ravage the nations of Nigeria, or the simmering cold rivalry between Morocco and Algeria. A more militarily powerful Spain, with the means and vested interest in putting its finger on the scale, could be far more active in helping to contain, manage, or better yet prevent any of those breakdowns from taking place. Or if a fair is an africa word enough, Spain is the NATO power that's the most natural fit to guard the Mediterranean's western opening. This isn't a especially tall task in the modern day between the proliferation of sea drones and other asymmetric threats, and Russia's growing interest in probing NATO from all directions at once. The British can help out, of course, watching from the overseas territory of Gibraltar, but the fact that Gibraltar and the British military are so central to scaring the choke point is yet another instance where modern day Spain has essentially just dropped the ball. The British have had Gibraltar for over 300 years now, and it certainly made sense that the territory was the prime NATO outpost to watch the western Mediterranean during Spain's Francoist days. But now the Francoist days are long gone. The British military has more than enough rebuilding to do, and it would be really nice if Spain could at least take care of the geo-strategically vital choke points that is on its doorstep. So go back to the title question of this episode, how useless is the Spanish military? Well, very useless indeed, and we'll say it once more. We don't intend to insult Spain's troops here, or understate their ability to do the very best they can with what they've been provided. But in a much larger sense, Spain is a nation that simply declined to build a military that benefits its size, its influence, or its economic power. And while that decision would be easy enough to excuse if Russia were the only threat that the NATO alliance was facing, that simply isn't the case. Alliance members in Europe faced complex challenges that Spain could be working to address pro actively, helping itself and its treaty partners. Just as much as Spain's useless military is Spain's fault, it's also the fault of the entire NATO alliance, an organization that's been complacent for decades and is now trying to give itself sufficient shock therapy through the spectra of Russian aggression that its member states will decide to wake up. This gets a broader point that we've made in the past here on Warfronts, and that perhaps will present as a case of argument of its own one day. Just let us know in the comments if you're interested in seeing this concept explored. NATO has constrained itself for far too long to narrow-minded approaches to collective defence, where European member states are expected to all have basically the same military proportional to their size, with basically the same capabilities as each other. That doesn't make sense for any NATO nation. These are countries with different climates and geographies, different neighbours, different strengths and weaknesses and different geopolitical motivations. They could each excel in certain areas, and those areas of strength will vary depending on what country we're talking about, but instead, NATO pushes those countries into a one-size-fits-all approach that has never come close to the alliance's potential. And nowhere have the results been worse in the dangerous and unpredictable 2020 s than in Spain, where a country and its people are being asked to care very much about fighting a threat that isn't close to them, with a rebuilt military that closely resembles a legacy they'd like to leave behind. So instead of ending this episode on a sour note, pooping the Spanish military and then fading to black, let's present an alternative vision for a reformed, re-energ ized Spanish military. Let's take Spanish priorities and cultural memories, fuse them with an understanding of Spain's actual geo-strategic and domestic situation, and work out a way that the Spanish armed forces could look to enhance both Spain's own security and the security of the NATO alliance. And humble request to any Spaniards in the comments do let us know whether or not this would be a Spanish military that you'd be more interested in supporting than the one you've got right now. This is a thought experiment, after all, so please let us know how it turns out. And let's begin with force composition. The question of which of its armed forces Spain chooses to build up and develop Rather than a military optimise for homeland defence to guard over a country that really doesn't need much direct guarding over, Spain is an ideal candidate to build versatile, relatively light expeditionary forces. Again, a proactive response to the Mediterranean and to North and Sahelian Africa gives Spain an option to intervene in crises, address conflicts, or disarray humanitarian aid before those complex problems reach Spanish or any other European soil. In Spain's case, an expeditionary military would also help to keep the military mostly off Spain's own soil for political reasons and historical ones. For the many Spanish citizens who would prefer their military mostly out of sight and mostly out of mind, but would still like to ensure as safe and secure a country as possible, a military that's heavy on naval capabilities and air power, and deployed mostly in the Spanish south, or at generally peaceful overseas bases, maybe a substantial improvement. The Spanish Civil Guard, one of the country's most trusted public institutions, can handle affairs back home. On the water, Spanish investments in surface warships would go a long way to lock down the Strait of Gibraltar, relieve NATO pressure on British troops, and guarantee security in the western Mediterranean. In World West Spain's military played a more active role, its naval responsibilities would be twofold. Keep watch over the natural gas pipelines, shipping routes, undersea data scables, and other key infrastructure built through the sea, and address the flow of people, weapons, drugs, and other goods being smuggled into the European Union. That first task requires Spain to essentially pull long-term guard duty, but an on-ideal world provide very sophisticated guard duty. In today's world, that means a combination of surface warships that could provide layered air defense capability, small sea drones built to detect an intercept, other sea drones, and a densely packed, constantly monitored sensor environment to closely track what's happening on and beneath the water surface. To that end, Spain could invest in a small but powerful handful of destroyers and newer frigates along with in-house production for cheaper air defense assets and sea drone interceptors. As for maritime patrol to intercept smugglers, Spain could use a somewhat larger fleet of patrol craft, but even more helpful would be better intelligence gathering and coordination. So, as Spain builds out its sensors, a handful of additional patrol vessels might be able to work together with long-range, low-flying, relatively inexpensive light attack and surveillance aircraft. Brazil's Superticano, for example, fills a similar role over the Amazon, and several Turkish-made drone models could do the same if Spain prefers to go the unmound route. And finally, Spain may see real value in rethinking its commitment to its aircraft carrier, the Juan Carlos I. The Spanish military's value to Madrid and also to NATO would be realized in our scenario by guarding Spain's immediate vicinity, making power- projecting carrier capability significantly less relevant. And in a very similar vein, an expeditionary Spanish ground and air force would each be focused on deploying with a relatively light touch, relying on highly trained, highly capable troops to work alongside partner militaries across the northern half of Africa. This is an area that NATO has largely neglected since France withdrew from its former colonial holdings a few years ago, and the results have been disastrous. The Islamic State is on the rise across the continent, the al-Qaeda-linked insurgency Janim is running circles around the regional military governments, and in the absence of NATO support, Russia's paramilitary Africa Corps have had all too easy of a time stepping into the void. But the Africa are on top of the task, and neither are any of the region's governments. Least of all the regimes in Mali were 2026, as seen multiple nationwide blitzes by Janim, and an ethnic tower egg separatist alliance, or Niger, where in 2026, the Islamic State has grown in power, and the leadership barely survived a coup attempt last August. Spain still needs a few combat aircraft to replace the aging F-A-18, now that the F-35 is off the table, and the F-cast program has fallen apart. But rather than seeking an all- purpose replacement, Spain may do well to consider a two-track model, a highly versatile, rugged, easily maintained option to deploy into other countries, and a longer- range heavy strike aircraft that could be permanently based on Spanish soil and conduct operations abroad with air-to-air refueler support. Both would have to be proven in extreme heat environments. To that end, there's one aircraft model that stands out for each role. In rugged deployments of international forward-operating bases, Sweden's E-Grippen, known for its resistance to environmental extremes, including dust storms and extreme heat, as well as its ability to land and take off on roads and challenging airstrips, and disease manufacturing. That's a sharp contrast to say the F-16, an aircraft that notoriously requires mannequin runways and complex maintenance procedures to remain operational. For the longer-range role, there's the American-made F- 15EX, a loud, heavy, but very capable fighter with a very range of nearly 4,000 kilometers when it's outfitted with external fuel tanks. That's more than enough range to skip on refills and reach most of the western Sahel, as well as areas like Libya or western Sahara from the port cities of southern Spain. The F-15EX is highly sophisticated, and it's based on one of the most desert-proven combat aircraft of all time, the F-15 Eagle. And we should note here that neither of the Grippen nor the F-15EX are stealthy. But in Spain's case, stealth is sort of an assumed necessity in a NATO alliance, where every country is expected to fly a one-size-fits-all military. In reality, Spain's strategic challenges just don't demand stealth, aside from perhaps 10 or 20 copies of a sixth-generation jet when they do become available. What Spain could consider, however, is expanding an order of low-cost, easy-to-maintain, propeller-attack craft like the Super T ocano or America's militarized crop duster, the Sky Raider, to further enhance the capabilities of troops sent to austere environments. And finally, the Spanish army, where, again, Spain's current strengths would suggest building a relatively small ground force, bashed toward highly professional, light, versatile, elite infantry and armoured units. Those units would be expected to be added abroad, mostly to Africa, to build Spain's and NATO's footprints in areas where crises slowly bleed northward until the fallout hit Spanish soil. Here, Spain would need to counterbalance and chip away at the influence of groups like Russia's Africa Corps. But although the Africa Corps is relatively deeply enmes hed in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, Spain would not have a difficult time presenting itself as a better alternative. Spanish troops are far less prone to atrocities, far more willing to actually train partner militaries and advise them on the front lines, and they're within much closer range of consistent, high-caliber, fixed-wing air support. These troops could also carry on a military mission that ordinary Spaniards back home are far more comfortable with, distributing humanitarian aid and providing vital relief in ways that the Africa Corps really does not engage with. The Sahel's military regimes will probably remain committed to the Africa Corps at least until those regimes collapse under their own weight. But nations like Nigeria, Benin and Ghana could greatly benefit from Spanish support, and so could Libya and Algeria, where roughly 170,000 refugees already have received Spanish support in their exile from Western Sahara. Of course, reforms of this scale would hardly be easy for the Spanish military to accomplish. They would cost money and require discussions that would drag Spain's armed forces back into the public consciousness. But in Spain, the military status quo hasn't served anybody for a very long time, and the people of Spain have just as much of a right to be frustrated with the state of things as the people who lead NATO nations. All this, for a major European economy with real strategic challenges and priorities, positions at an ideal spot to focus its attention southward, while the rest of the alliance focuses on an expansionist enemy to the east. The Spanish military in its current form is just about useless, both for itself and for its NATO partners. But it does not have to be that way. Trump, Sanchez, their successors, and the rest of the alliance can haggle over spending percentages for years to come. Or Spain and its allies can start finding ways to build a Spanish military that works better for everyone. Thank you for watching.